CHAPTER 7: Quite The Discovery
ORANGE COUNTY PRESS
Sunday, October 12, 1986
FAMILY MASSACRE ROCKS ORANGE COUNTY
by Rob Scott
Orange County, CA-A local teenager made a grisly discovery yesterday when she went over to a friend's house and found a brutal murder scene.
The dead have been identified as three members of the De Luzio family; 40-year old Edward, 38-year old Marnie, and 12-year old Lucy. A fourth family member, 10-year old Stacy, is nowhere to be found, and believed to have been abducted by the murderer.
The three were tied up and run over by their own lawn mower, their remains loaded into trash bags and left in the back yard. A strange, five pointed symbol was carved into a nearby tree. Neighbors did recall hearing the sounds of a lawn mower late Friday night, but no one went over to investigate. Their bodies were discovered early Saturday by Lucy's classmate, 13-year old Allison Lindsay, who had been invited over by Lucy shortly before the murders.
"There was red everywhere in the backyard," Lindsay told us. "I should have known enough not to look inside those bags…I don't think I'll ever forget that disgusting sight."
"What could possess someone to do something this horrible?"
Coincidentally, the murders took place on the same day one of Edward's coworkers died; Herbert Stelson, a fellow accountant at Cameron-Muller, was killed in a car accident just a few miles away.
If anyone has any information about Stacy De Luzio's disappearance, or the identity of the murderer, please call the Orange County Police Department.